Predestination

An irresistibly sexy flick during which I felt extreme anticipation for a carefully concealed and emotional point that would further confirm its cleverness. Instead, however, it becomes an endless loop in which everything possible is overwrought and it thus remains “only” a sexy flick that’s nicely paced and spectacularly shot with an interesting story. (20.01.2024)

This movie is absolutely wild—in the best way possible. It's the kind of story you'd never see made or funded in America, but thankfully, Australia has a soft spot for the Spierig brothers. This is their third film, and they're definitely on an upward trajectory quality-wise. Predestination follows in the spirit of their last movie, Daybreakers, but it cranks things up with an incredible atmosphere, a standout performance from Ethan Hawke, and an ultimate array of mind-bending time loops. It quickly becomes one of the most insanely intricate time-travel sci-fi films, weaving past and future together to create something that—spoiler alert—Red Dwarf fans would recognize as an "Ouroboros." So yeah, it's definitely not bad. (31.12.2014)

Sitting at the bar with a shorter haircut telling her story, Sarah Snook looks like a young DiCaprio in the 'pre-Titanic' era, and not only does she look it, she gives a similarly fantastic performance. The entire first hour, its narrative, offers one of the most interesting passages the film world has delivered in the last year. Unfortunately, though, when the cards are laid on the table, the only thing left to play with are the temporal paradoxes so beautifully parodied in the Back to the Future trilogy. It's a great shame because a lot of potential was wasted. (05.01.2015)

Here even the word “paradox” falls short… In other time-travel films, time paradoxes are obstacles that the filmmakers try to overcome to no avail, and which fully manifest once the viewer begins to question the logic of the story, but in Predestination, the paradox is the alpha and the omega of the story. The creators carefully build it, almost trying to make it as paradoxical as possible. (25.11.2014)

The bar conversation is so brilliant you forget you're watching a sci-fi about time travel. Then the action starts, and if you have already seen a few films like this, you'll start to get an idea of what the brothers will try to pull on you at the end. I could have been annoyed at them maybe even more, but the fact that they actually keep it pretty low-key the whole time and everything is dealt with in a rather non-violent way with clever dialogues makes me go quite high with my rating in the end. (08.07.2015)